What is the intended purpose for heavy fighters? Right now, they have a turn rate very similar to ships like the Connie and Corsair, but they lack the shields and firepower of those.asked by Boomish

So, this is a question for me, yes. So, we have been playing with heavy fighter tuning since 3.23, basically the Master Modes release, and our idea about the heavy fighter role hasn't changed much throughout the time. So basically what we think a heavy fighter is, is a heavier fighter that has lower maneuverability compared to light fighters, but increased durability and increased firepower. That's as simple as that, right? Currently, we have retuned the entire heavy fighter class, which includes ships like the F8, the new Guardian, the other Guardians, and so on and so forth, to fit a better spot. And in our opinion, the spot that the heavy fighters now actually cover is quite fine. We do notice that the heavy fighter class is slightly underperforming right now though, but we think it's related more to the relationship between cross classes rather than the heavy fighter tuning per se. So stuff, for example, like how the heavy fighter is dealing against a medium fighter, or a ship of a bigger size, like for example a Constellation or stuff like that. So we would like to dive more into the tuning for other classes first before assessing the overall heavy fighter tuning and whether that needs to be addressed once again. So currently this is the state of the heavy fighter class in general, but we have some even more updates or more ideas for the...

So the current ratio on where the fighters sit doesn't necessarily need to stay this way. We have the updated flight model coming and we're using that to basically, I wouldn't say reset, but reevaluate especially the relationships between the fighters. For example, from our perspective at the moment with the updated flight model, the heavy fighters just feel a little bit too tanky. Because they're still fighters, right? So we're currently evaluating whether or not we should make them more vulnerable. Because if you compare some numbers from, for example, a Gladius versus an F8, we're looking at like five times the health. That is quite a lot for a fighter class. So we're evaluating or reevaluating that once the new flight model, or the updated flight model, is coming online.

And when you say evaluate, that means you're still making your decisions?

Yeah, sure. Nothing is ever set in stone when it comes to that.

You're asking the question whether that five times is right. You're not sitting here saying today five times is wrong.

No. I mean, we can never really set it to a fixed thing. We can plan as much as we want, but whether our plans survive reality is a different question. Also, sometimes other things are coming, for example the upcoming armor system and so on, that will also change these dynamics and might just require some other adjustments somewhere else.